CLOROGENE BUSINESS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 144, 21 June 1933, Page 11

CLOROGENE BUSINESS

AFFAIRS OF SYNDICATE MORE COURT PROCEEDINGS The affairs of Reginald Charles Boddic and a syndicate formed for manufacturing a disinfectant known as Clorogene arc again occupying the attention of Mr. Justice Ostler in the Supreme Court today. Boddic and. his wife,- Hilda Mary Boddie, arc proceeding against four members of the syndicate—James Dicksou Sievwright, Marguerite Helen Miller, William Thomson Neill, and John McLachlan—and the Clorogeue Co., Ltd., alleging that a notice of forfeiture of five-twelfths of the shares he j and his had. held in the syndicate was | illegal. After notice of forfeiture of their shares had becu served on the plaintiffs by the other member? of .the syndicate a private company called the j Clorogeno Co., Ltd., was formed, and in this company the plaintiffs claim that they should "be shareholders. I Mr. C. Evans-Scott appears for tho [plaintiffs; Mr. F. C. Spratt for Neill'; Mr. D. W. Virtue for Mrs.- Miller; Mr. A. B. Sievwright for the defendant company and J. D. Sievwright; and Mr. E. L. A. Crosswell for McLachlan. In their statement of claim the plaintiffs ask for a declaration that the sale by the defendants to the defendant company of the Clorogene formula and of the, goodwill of the business of manufacturing and selling Clorogene is null and void, or, alternatively, a declaration that the defendant company holds the formula upon trust for the members of the syndicate, including the plaintiffs; a declaration that the notice of forfeiture sent to the plaintiffs was null and, ineffective; a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from disclosing tlio formula to anyone else, and from manufacturing it except otherwise, than on behalf of the syndicate members, including the plaintiffs; an account by the defendant company of any profits made by it from sales of or dealings in Clorogene; £.250. damages from the company for passing off an inferior preparation as Clorogene; and £500 damages from the four defend: ants for breach of contract. The flofendants admit sending a notice of forfeiture to the plaintiffs ber cause in December, 1932, and January, 1933, the plaintiff Reginald Boddie failed, to carry out the duties imposed on him by the agreement by leaving the business premises in Wellington. Ho was ultimately discovered at New Ply: mouth, manufacturing and/or .selling Clorogene without the knowledgo of the other members of the syndicate and without rendering proper statements of accounts to them. It was contended that Boddip had been expressly _ prohibited from, commencing businoss operations outside Wellington. In view of the forfeiture it was claimed it was not necessary to obtain the consent of the plaintiffs for the formation of the company. Legal argument on the evidence adduced during the. recent slander action, in which Boddie and J.- D. Sievwright were,the parties, is proceeding.